The Good Advice You Just Didn't Take

I get a lot of questions on Quora about YouTube, namely the annoying ones about how to get more subscribers (and/or how much money will I make off this very small subscriber statistic). As much as I'm annoyed by these questions, I think they're still valid as it's often easy to overlook what exactly attracts you to a YouTube channel in the first place. One of the best litmus tests I ever heard came from the now-infamous Nostalgia Critic, Doug Walker, "What are YOU looking for?" This advice is hardly exclusive to the Shouting and Remembering Guy, but it's the most direct take on it and gives the best jumping off point for moving forward with your own YouTube endeavors. While many of these Quora questions are just thinly-disguised spam, every now and again someone is looking for legitimate feedback on why their fledgling channel is struggling to leave the nest. I took one of these on at great, unapologetic length, as is often my way on these things. In my defense, however harsh, blunt, tactless, condescending, or even outright mean you think I come across as, the entertainment consuming audience as a whole is far, far worse. Think about it, they don't have to give you feedback. They can give you the silent treatment and walk out the door at any time to leave you wondering what you did wrong. Now tell me who's harsh and mean and all that jazz. I'm not asking for a parade or a medal, only that you trust the purity of my intentions when I tell someone bad at what they do that they're bad at what they do. 

The question in... well, question, read:

Why is my YouTube video getting low views and very low subscribers? What am I doing wrong?

This was followed by a link to a YouTube channel with maybe about 30 or so subscribers and a handful of views and dis/likes on some videos. What follows is my answer, near as makes no difference to verbatim: 

Shortest, simplest answer: because whenever you’re not being boring, you’re being annoying.

Still reading? Good, that means you’re either a glutton for punishment or legitimately willing to gracefully accept criticism. Either way, we’ll get into what I mean by annoying and boring. I’ll be focusing on your Ghost Rider/Mad Titan video primarily; a little bit goes a long way.

Visuals. There’s nothing wrong with using a slide program to make your videos. It’s actually very efficient… if you know how to do it right. There is a problem with using a slide program to make your videos when you do it poorly. Firstly and most obviously, don’t show us that it’s a slideshow. Trim the part of the video that shows the slide program before you go full screen.

I don’t show my iMovie timeline at the start of every video, and even the most budget-conscious smartphone can trim the starts and ends of video clips (so we don’t have to see you reach to and from the phone to start and stop recording). You want your videos to look like polished, finished products, not tech demos for “tech” that gives cave paintings a run for their money in terms of antiquity and obsolescence in the telecommunications field. Second, let’s talk aesthetics:

What am I looking at, highlighter on typing paper? Why don’t you just use Comic Sans and have done with it? I mean, you’re already talking about comic books, why hold back now? A plain white background? Watch almost any movie ever and tell me if the end credits are black text on a white background or white text on a black background. The eye, being lazy, is drawn to white space, so by framing your comic panels with nothing but bright white space, you’re actually distracting from what you want to be the focus. White absorbs colors, and I can promise you your panels will look more colorful and striking against black (why do you think some sites and devices have “night modes”?).

The sound. Good grief, the sound. Did you build your microphone yourself in the dark, with your eyes closed, wearing oven mitts, and with little to no understanding of how a microphone works? How many tin cans went into its construction? Are you using wet strings instead of wires? Now, before you go telling me about what you can or can’t afford, how you’re just a poor boy from a poor family and that I should spare you your life from this monstrosity known as open market capitalism, take a moment to look at the walls of your room, and then look in your closet.

My point is unless your microphone is welded onto your 1998 Compaq Presario’s CRT monitor, you need to take that recording operation into your closet and use the clothes on hangers as baffles.

Baffled? Compare the hanging clothes to "professional-grade" sound dampening acoustic foam. See the similarities? 

Closet too small and/or packed with crap? Have only the clothes on your back to be baffles? Two words: Blanket fort. I’m not even joking. You’d be surprised how well towels work for sound dampening. 

Now comes the hardest part to change: you. I can talk your ear off about acoustics and mixing, blind you with details on lighting and editing, and even direct you through scripting and writing, but I can’t make you a more charismatic, engaging, and insightful person. You’ve got to do that on your own. Let’s start with delivery: I counted about a dozen “ums” and “uhs” in a span of about 30 seconds in your video, your video that you yourself wrote on a subject you yourself decided to elaborate on.

IT’S YOUR SCRIPT! IT’S YOUR WORDS! IT’S YOUR SUBJECT OF CHOICE! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY WHEN YOU’VE ALREADY WRITTEN IT, REVISED IT, REREAD IT, REWROTE IT, AND ALL OTHER MANNER OF REVIEWED IT? IT’S WRITE IN FRONT OF YOU… RIGHT… right in front of you.

Your script is right in front of you, isn’t it? Better question, you did write a script, didn’t you? Bear in mind, by script, I’m talking about something as minimal as bullet points, an itemized list of talking points to help keep you on track and from going off on unnecessary tangents. Hell, draw a picture if it helps you.

See how I can use black text on a plain white background if there’s more to the composition than black text on a plain white background?

I said I would only talk about your Ghost Rider vs. Thanos video, but I checked your “iPhone screen recording” that was your earlier Thanos video, and you’ve got many of the same problems with opening that video as you do with Ghost Rider:

“okayimuhmakingthisvideonowpleasermemebertolikesharesubscribecommentumtoyourumfamilyumanduhfriendspleasewatchmyvideos…”

If you’re in that much of a hurry to get through your own videos, what’s to stop someone from taking it a step further and not watching them at all? If you’re just going to read some Wiki pages while fumbling through some screenshots, why should anyone stick around for that instead of looking up the information themselves? If the presentation is boring, the quality of the content doesn’t matter.

If you care more about your metrics than your content, you’re doing it wrong.

That's the end of the answer proper. It was followed up by a comment from the aspiring YouTuber thanking me for the feedback and providing me a link to a new video (on a new channel of his) to ask if this improved on the previous videos. 

The sound was even worse. (turn your volume down before clicking the link). 

I asked, along with why a new channel would be necessary, if he was being annoying and irritating on purpose. The comment has since been deleted. 

I can't help you if you're going to make the same mistakes over and over again. 

Moth Leaf Light HD

Found this pretty little guy under my mailbox when I was stepping out for coffee. I'd never seen a green one before, so I assumed maybe it was freshly hatched, hence its mobility issues. I learned later from my friend who runs DorkStitch by way of an article link that this is a Luna Moth. They live for about a week and the males have no mouth. They're also nocturnal. Given that, it's more than likely this poor thing was on its way out, though he was upright and on his feet when I got back. 

Moths used to terrify me as a kid; they were big and had fur, which simply seemed "wrong" in my mind. You have to admit, seeing these gnarled, twig-like legs poking out from soft fuzzy cotton is eerie and odd. Now, especially ones like this with those feathery antennae and wing-tails, I think they're beautiful. 

An Eternity Measured

My entry for the Sci-Fi London 2014 48-hour storytelling competition. Late Friday evening, I was messaged with the following prompts to build the story around: 

"Title: AN ETERNITY MEASURED
Line: As far as I'm concerned you're 31 with a mental age of... Probably 12.
Theme: What if people could reproduce asexually?"

This is the result. It was a challenge, but immensely fun to work on.

Her eyes scanned the topmost shelf of the bookcase, empty save for three black books, each with a Roman numeral on its spine. The rest of the room was far less reserved and enigmatic. The walls were practically covered with black-framed photos of their gracious host shaking hands with various past presidents and other select world leaders. A few more were on some of the other shelves, propped up against photo albums and scrapbooks. The other shelves contained all various manner of mementos, most of them toys. Some she found quaint, even endearing, such as a rusty metal pickup truck, the kind her own grandfather likely would have had passed down to him. Others, though, struck her a bit less flattering, such as a diorama of a semi-nude slave girl chained to a pillar, the base bearing an undeniably barbarian-sounding name in gold foil. The circle of Mardis Gras beads around it didn't help. It was even starting to turn her stomach a bit. She wondered if those little black books up top were full of numbers arranged according to cute little pet names instead of real ones. She took a sip of her wine and tried to tell herself she was only projecting. 
It was late in the evening and the party had quieted down, apart from the occasional fit of raucous laughter from her boyfriend, having made it his mission to match each of her sips with a full glass. She took another sip and pinched the bridge of her nose as she heard footsteps from the stairwell, expecting it to be him. Another laugh from downstairs told her it wasn't. 
"Impressed?" it was their host, a man who'd cheated death three times thanks to modern science. She said nothing. Her boyfriend was convinced meeting this man would lead to some high-tier networking, thanks to all those famous and powerful people he'd met in his multiple lifetimes. She tried to inform him gently that simply knowing someone wasn't the same as having someone's ear or a direct line up a chain of command, but it was no use. "I'd ask if you'd like to see my etchings, but I don't think your guy would approve. He says that's how you met. Surprised he knows that routine, young as he is." It was the last straw. She hated that story. It wasn't true. He only told it to get a rise out of her, and now it was being used as an icebreaker to get in good with someone whose only claim to fame was being one of a dozen successful cloning experiments. 

"As far as I'm concerned, you're 31 with a mental age of... Probably 12." She shot him a dirty look. She didn't care anymore; she wanted to leave. If it meant offending the host, so be it. 
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but passive-aggressive quantifications of my emotional maturity make head feel no good, then all better." Considering she was expecting him to go for the obvious and make some snooty remark about how, once upon a time, having a childhood was a mark of distinction and class, that he went the mocking manchild route was something of a relief. She tried to hold back a smile, but gave in, a small chuckle coming with it. Looking down into her wine glass, she waved her free hand around, trying to think of where to start and how to phrase an apology. He cut her off, "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at entertaining. I'm more used to being a guest. Even then, I'm lucky if one joke or story clicks." 
She motioned to the diorama and beads with her glass, "If you want to try for two, I'm sure the story behind this is hilarious." He looked a little embarrassed, giving an "aw, shucks" sort of smile. 
"They're only technically mine. Old Mister Zero knew the guy who drew those comics when he was about half my age." he said, reaching up and taking down the first book, holding it as a preacher holds up a bible, putting his other hand to his heart and donning a comical Irish accent, "I was a different person back then, poppet." He replaced it and took down the second, this time only pinching its corner between his thumb and forefinger, waving it side-to-side, "You don't want to know what this guy was into." he put it back and took the third one down, flipping through a few pages. "This one's a work in progress." She could see they were simple notebooks, informal journals, and realized the reason for the shelf space. 

"Old Mister Zero? Not number one?" she nodded to the shelf. 

"He was ninety when he submitted his original material. Died about a year later. No memoirs."

"No family?" She asked, knowing the answer, and the awkward reason for it. 

He turned toward the pictures on the wall, turning the notebook over in his hands, "Clones are perfect copies, flaws and all. You need good genes to pass on. Luckily, he was the kind of guy insurance companies loved; no pre-existing conditions. No heart problems, no cancer, no diabetes... extraordinary by being ordinary. Almost a perfect specimen." He saw her blush a little, but gave a comforting smile before going on, "One hundred total candidates passed. Only half were successful, and only about a dozen of us have carried on. Number four will put me in the top three after I'm gone."

"What happened to them, the ones who didn't carry on?" She asked. 

"They decided to solve the birth rate problem the old-fashioned way, settling down and having families."

"I'm sorry," she said, feeling she'd put him on the spot. 

"I'm not. It's win-win, really. They get normal lives, and guys like me get their appearance gigs." He looked around at all the photos, sighing, "Of course, talk shows and garden parties can't pay bills forever. My stand up career clearly isn't going to take off, though I think my Irish accent's getting better." 
"So, what are you going to do to fill the book, besides your Father Ted impression?" 
He thought for a moment, "I've heard etching has become kind of a lost art." 

I Made A Thing

Tried out one of those Slice blades to make square/rectangular holes in some upcoming punch card-themed works. Not exactly the miracle tool I thought it was; when I first saw this thing, it looked like its point was a needle, and you could hold and use it like a pencil, effectively cutting (or at least scoring) anything you drew. Turns out it is simply a blade, although smaller and made from ceramic. The result of this is that the blade doesn't really bend, it never dulls, and cuts fairly deep but not so deep it gets stuck. Still, it didn't make particularly clean cuts in either the notebook page or the cardstock of the tag. 

Qomics Quintology IV: What If? No. 83

We take a look at one of What If...?'s boldest and most experimental "alterniverses."

Something about my current editing process:
As I'm using Linux, my video editing options are somewhere between slim and nil. For a time, I used a program called OpenShot, which I was very impressed with to the point of calling it the Linux equivalent to iMovie or Windows Movie Maker. The trouble is that I went from using a small form-factor Linux computer that I built to a Dell Optiplex that some law firm my roommate's nephew worked for didn't want anymore. It ran Windows XP, but was locked with a password and had no recovery disk, which prompted me to just running Linux Mint on it. All seemed well and good, but somehow Openshot decided it didn't want to work anymore. The first time I used OpenShot, I got an error message telling me I needed some codecs so it could properly export the video. Luckily, all I had to do was enter the names of the codecs and the error message in a search and I got a solution right away. Later, when I got the Dell, I ran into a similar problem, but when I downloaded and installed the right components (and a few others) just like before, absolutely nothing happened. OpenShot just didn't want to work at all.
This meant I had to use YouTube's built-in video editor, which is serviceable but has two important problems. The first problem is that I basically have to upload all my raw footage, edit each clip individually (namely trimming), and then open a new project in YouTube's editor. This takes hours. One of the great advantages of recording to SD cards or an internal memory is that all I have to do is drag and drop the clips into the editor, which works almost instantly. With using YouTube's editor, it's akin to using tapes, where you have to sit and watch it download in real time. The second and most irritating problem is that, if I use multiple cameras, the video's overall resolution defaults to the lowest.
The Nokia Nuron, which could well be my favorite video camera ever, has the ability to shoot with colored filters, trim and merge clips, and even allow me to dub over the soundtrack. It's surprisingly robust for a feature that's essentially an afterthought on a phone. The catch is that not only is it not a high definition video, it's barely standard definition.
Without getting into a whole mathematical mess of aspect ratios and resolutions, the key point is that my Sony Cybershot shoots HD video, which means each frame is 720 pixels tall. A DVD, by comparison, is 480 pixels tall (that's standard definition). The Nuron's widescreen mode is 360 pixels tall. Since I'm recording the introductions to most of these videos on the Nuron, that means I'm asking YouTube's editor to merge a 720 image with a 360 image. In the end, the maximum resolution of the completed video project is only 360 pixels tall. No high definition, not even standard definition. It's still 120 lines more than a VHS tape, but it basically means I'm not getting the best image possible.
On the whole, though, while shooting in HD is appealing, I care far more about my videos being widescreen, so it's a small loss and really just irritates me because HD video eats memory card space.
In short, I really should just upgrade my system to something that can handle a more practical and versatile editing program such as Sony Vegas, but two things: 1) I can't afford that kind of upgrade (got a bit eaten alive on my taxes thanks to something from my past coming back to haunt me) and 2) In the end, I don't make videos all that often. It's only rarely that I get the bug to film something and it often goes as quickly as it arrives. About the only reason I put as much effort into it as I do is because apart from sales of my prints on DeviantART, my videos are one of the few things I produce that can generate money via ad revenue. Granted, it's not going to supplant my day job anytime soon, if ever at all, but it'd be nice for a few embellishments and frivolities, so anything that can help get me a return on my investment (even for a hobby) is worth pursuing.

Qomics Quintology Part II: Swords of the Swashbucklers number 2

This has left me feeling just a little bit morose. My attempt to make quality video projects using only what I've got at my disposal (and a little less) hasn't really yielded the results I'd like. Still, I intend to finish what I started, and I can say that because I actually finished part 3 before I started part 2 (even shot an introduction for part 4).

Qomics Quintology I: Dracula No. 11

First video in a five part series.

The Rune Scroll Project

I should be more excited about finally finishing this, given that it took me about a month (completing about a page per day, working somewhat leisurely at it), but in the end, it's just disappointing. I had originally planned to lay it all out on the floor and, using a table dolly, pan left to right in one single and relatively smooth move.

It didn't work out. 15 takes later, I ended up just putting the camera on a tripod, setting the book on a table, and just opening it by hand.

I might post another video I made of putting together the last page, but that's turning out to be a bit of a pain in terms of editing, so it'll be a while.

Quartet of Qontent... Content.

A curious thing happened this past week; not only did I produce a video, I produced four in about as many days. It all started with me getting ready for a sketchbook project that's nearing completion whereupon I'll film the final product as opposed to scanning it. Next, I came upon a video of Mike Matei demonstrating the painfully meticulous inking process for the title card of the Angry Video Game Nerd's Star Wars episode. Someone in the comments cheekily asked about the potential of making a mistake, and that led to me making the first video Ink is My Pal. It was the first time I'd ever filmed myself with my Sony Cybershot H55, and I realized just what a complete technical moron I can be at times*. As such, I turned the trials and tribulations into the next three videos so that not only will I not repeat the mistakes I made, but others can hopefully learn from them as well.
Fair warning/cop-out: These are rather "quick & dirty" as videos go; they're rushed, half-scripted/half-improvised, and edited entirely using YouTube's new built-in editor, which essentially stands somewhere between a typical Linux video editor and iMovie. Polish wasn't the point, however; it was making as many videos as I could in a short amount of time and getting past my usual meticulousness and perfectionism in favor of just making some damn content. My more fiction/narrative/abstract works, by contrast, I hope will be a little more refined and at least look like more effort's been put into them.



*See, I've made videos since at least high school, where I worked on the morning's televised announcements and produced a number of news stories and sketches. However, while that may sound like a robust regimen of working experience, the fact is that I left all the technical stuff to other people. Instead, I focused on scripting, storyboarding, and (minimally) editing. I ended up acting a little more than I wanted to (thankfully in Voiceover, with which I'm far more comfortable given my radio-face), and rarely operated the camera beyond simply pushing the record button every now and then. 

Memories of Artistic Integrity

While I'll reserve my overall opinion of Channel Awesome for later (short preview: it's riddled with ambivalence and dusted with a thin layer of passive-aggressive indifference, particularly in light of their stance against SOPA/PIPA), the fact remains that I do follow a few of their content producers with a relative level of vested interest. One that fell off the radar of late, though, is Little Miss Gamer, who had taken a respite of her normal output in favor of other personal projects. Just a few days ago, however, she posted a video of a new puppet-themed series poking fun at the XBox360's Kinect device. The video is getting an almost perfect 50/50 split of likes and dislikes for a number of reasons too myriad to generalize, much less explore.
What caught my attention about this video, however, was something I don't think I'd ever seen before on any other video, which is the ability to take someone else's video, edit it in YouTube's browser-based video editor, and actually post it to one's own channel. My first honest thought was, "Why in God's name would anyone let other people do that?" Really, what's to stop someone taking a video, making only the most minor edit to it, and then posting it to their own channel wherein, by power of the editor's potentially built-in legion of subscribers, its views can exceed those of the original despite the lack of effort on the part of the editor? Consider the implications of this for a partnered channel, whether it's the original or the editor. The point is, someone stands to gain financially from someone else's work (or deprive financial gain) with little to no effort.
Most of you are probably saying, "It's YouTube, what do you expect?" in a tone of voice that not only can I not identify as sarcastic or sincere, but neither can you.
Way back in my college days, which ironically ended the year YouTube came out, I was in a video art class with a rather healthily eclectic group of students who ultimately fell into two camps. One camp felt that the more control the filmmaker had at his or her disposal, the better and definitive the final product is. The other camp felt that the best work was produced under restrictions, even matters of final cut (not to be confused with the software). After screening assignments to each other one weekend, the discussion of grading came up, as some felt simply getting letter grades from our professor was a little bit shortsighted and not the most solid form of constructive feedback. Having just read about the Phantom Editor's re-editing of George Lucas' The Phantom Menace, I genuinely put forth the idea of students critiquing each other by way of editing each other's videos. Some were on board, while others shrieked in horror. Truth be told, I was secretly in the latter camp, but I guess my thinking was twofold, first half being, "Well, what the Hell do I know?" and the second being, "I don't expect what I do in this class to have a life beyond this room, so who cares what some hack job wants to do with it?"
So, there I was today, sitting at my computer, visiting the YouTube page, and actually witnessing something I'd once suggested in a video art class coming to fruition.

Ironically, I've always been a big believer in the saying, "Better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

A Question for YouTube (quasi-s.978/copyright related)

I'd never heard of this until a YouTube partner by the name of The Archfiend pointed it out. Apparently, a common (or once common) trend on YouTube was for people to post a comment, either on a video or a user's channel page, to the extent of "Sub4Sub" meaning, "If you subscribe to me, I shall return the favor."

For reasons that probably shouldn't have to be explained or explored in any great detail, this is really annoying, unfair, and, in the case of those asking, downright pathetic. Put simply, their channels are so bad, so borderline invisible, and so obnoxiously underwhelming that they have to ask people to subscribe to their channel in exchange for their pretend patronage.

Luckily, YouTube, in a moment of genuine interest in the goings-on of their site, decided this had to stop, and not only said as much, but literally found a way to prevent it. Now, if someone types "sub for sub" or anything along those lines, the comment does not post. The pathetic excuse for a human being begging for attention will get an error message that the comment cannot be posted due to an "internal error" which is a polite way of saying, "Get a damn life, you scum-sucking bottom-feeder." This technology isn't actually new, as many web-hosting services and a few online games have filters in place that seek out specific words and either erase them, or replace them with something else. It's typically reserved for obscenity and various foul terms, but YouTube has discovered it can also be used to keep people from mooching off of others. Again, genius.

YouTube also has a program that can "listen for" copyrighted music in videos and either mute the video or, as is more often the case, send you an e-mail asking if you'd like to allow a link to a legitimate download service (like iTunes or Amazon) to be posted alongside your video. Of course, it's not really a question, just a kind of gentle warning. They'll only post the link if they can actually get the rights to the song, otherwise they go with the muting option. In essence, they're trying to work with you, reach an agreement of sorts with the record labels so they don't take you to court for all you're worth plus interest. I've always felt the "free publicity" defense often used by people who use copyrighted music illegally in their videos is incredibly weak, tantamount to the spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum and screaming, "You never loved me!" but somehow YouTube has found a way to make it work. I may not approve of a compromise like this, but that's not the same as opposing it.

And yet, despite these capabilities at YouTube's disposal to help both its community and entertainment providers, I still see users posting full movies either in parts of around 10, or even, with the recent set of site changes of late, in single uploads. Granted, with the way the DMCA works, YouTube can't officially make a move against the offending user unless the original copyright holder files a formal complaint, a condition I consider akin to taking someone's car keys and throwing them in the river, insisting that it is not grand theft auto as the car is exactly where it was when the owner originally parked it and no one else has the keys. YouTube has created a kind of relatively safe haven for people to post videos that are not their own yet claims total immunity for what people do with it. Fair in principle, possibly, but jury's out on the practice. The point is, if they're willing to actively work and cooperate with record labels before any legal paperwork is filed, and set up parameters that flag comments for spam, why isn't there a means for automatically flagging videos that are of full-length feature films? Where's the misgiving about what exactly is going on with that user's channel? Sure, clips are tough to peg down as offending because they're only a short portion and often given at least a little context, such as hosting the video on a weblog for review or critique and putting a link to the journal in the description. Exhibiting the film in full, however, hardly counts as fair use, regardless of any attached analysis.

Copyright is far from a black and white issue, but it's not a complete gray area, either.

The Fourth Kind... of Worst Movie of All Time

As stated in the Paranormal Activity review, one of the biggest criticisms against these "Faux-Archival Recordings" films like The Last Broadcast or Cloverfield is their use of cinema-verite shooting and editing styles to disguise a low budget and/or inexperienced crew. It's akin to the criticism that most video recordings made of UFOs take advantage of low resolution and shakiness to hide what could otherwise be either a very obvious model or a perfectly normal and natural aerial phenomenon. To that end, The Fourth Kind tries to dispel these potential accusations by taking the bogus amateur footage and juxtaposing it with polished and highly dramatized re-enactments in the tradition of Unsolved Mysteries or America's Most Wanted. This merging of styles should have been the strength of the film. Instead, it tears at the very fabric of cinematic reality itself and exposes the utter incompetence of the director.

The plot of the film centers around a widowed psychologist named Abby Tyler, who's studying the sleeping habits of some of her patients in Nome, Alaska. She's carrying on the research of her husband, who was murdered several years ago while they slept. The good doctor has vague and distorted memories of the event and finds herself unable to clearly recall the killer's face. To further add to her anguish, her daughter is rendered blind shortly after the murder and her son becomes withdrawn and resentful of his mother. Unable to deal with him, Dr. Tyler buries herself in her late husband's work and begins to notice strange similarities in the testimonies of some of her patients. They all seem to have been woken in the middle of the night (around 3am) by a white owl. This owl becomes the last thing these patients clearly remember before they experience memory loss and blackouts. Attempts at using hypnotherapy to uncover these missing hours often results in fanatical panic attacks. Things take a turn for the worse when one of these patients becomes completely unhinged and murders his family before taking his own life, hysterically referencing an enigmatic "them." If you think you can see where the rest of the movie is going from here, there's at least a 75% chance you're absolutely right on the money. After all, when dealing with entities like ghosts or aliens, there aren't many directions the narrative can go; either you keep it vague and bank on the audience projecting their own fears over the gaps, or you come right out with it and turn the whole thing into a creature film. That's not a bad thing, and it's certainly not the low point of the film.

Where the movie fails is almost entirely in the presentation. The film has such a confused sense of its own reality yet tries desperately in spite of this to suspend the audiences' collective disbelief. This is what I like to call an Imperial Failure, which refers to a film that tries to be something more than what it is but has nothing to back up its endeavors with, much like The Emperor's New Clothes, where dignity and royalty are thrust upon the seemingly simple-minded masses in the hopes none of them will notice that the big kahuna's new threads are a birthday suit. Thus, when someone does point out the obvious, er, shortcomings, the whole exhibition falls apart and becomes a laughingstock. In short, there's nothing wrong with trying something new or different, but don't expect the path less traveled to be beyond criticism compared to the path well-worn.
Right from the start, we get our sense of reality thrown into question when Milla Jovovich emerges from a shadowy and out-of-focus forest, approaches the camera, looks the audience dead in the eye, and introduces herself as... herself. She goes onto say that what we are about to witness is based on reported events. She explains how the film will essentially be structured, with archival footage mixed with reenactments, either side-by-side on screen, juxtaposed, or even overlaid (in the case of some of the audio recordings).
If this all sounds like it would be jarringly distracting, completely ruining any sense of immersion, it is. The movie takes great pains to continually remind you that you're watching a reenactment; whenever a new character is introduced, however late into the narrative that may be, a caption appears beneath them giving the actor's name, their character's name, and, where applicable, a notation stating that the character's name is actually a pseudonym to protect the identity of the supposedly real individual.
This double-identity run-around reaches its epitome when the director himself appears in the film as the head of the psychology department at Chapman University, using his real name, which is Olatunde Osunsanmi. This situation is two-thirds true; Chapman University is a real establishment, and Olatunde Osunsanmi is an alumni, but he's not the head of the psychology department, now nor ever. Normally, I'd say, "fair enough" and even call the move subtle to the point of being masterfully crafted. After all, the director is not particularly well-known, certainly not as well known as someone like Milla Jovovich, so appearing to us in the supposed archival footage interviewing the allegedly real Abby Tyler would stand as a kind of subtle, yet finalizing, clue as to the film's insisted authenticity. Unfortunately, subtlety gets thrown out the window when he shows up at the end, in the shadowy and out-of-focus forest alongside Milla Jovovich, and delivers a would-be cryptic message to the audience along the lines of, "believe what you will."

This is the part that speaks to the director's incompetence. Milla can break character because she's part of the reenactment side of the equation, so she doesn't interfere with the archival footage's feigned authenticity. Olatunde, however, is part of the authentic side of the story, the part we're supposed to be fooled by, so when he breaks character (even if it's not that much of a character), he takes half his own movie down with him, leaving the other half twisting in the wind. This makes his pretentious statement of "believe what you will" utterly laughable because his very presence removes all doubt about what we're supposed to believe. People often talk of directors sabotaging their own movies, but few do it in person.

And another thing...



To put it another way, "twisting in the wind" is a charitable assessment of how the film's other half fares on its own.

Well, THAT happened... (Elektra: The Hand & The Devil)

I was a rather avid comic reader in the early 1990s, an era now known in comic book enthusiast circles as "The Dark Ages," a time when exaggerated anatomy, darker stories, morally ambiguous new heroes, and unwelcome overhauls to heroes of yore were the norm. In short, I wasn't seeing the medium at its best. As such, from 1995 onward, my two longboxes of polybagged publications saw no new additions and about as much time outside of my closet. In fact, it wasn't until at least the year 2006, when the special features on the DVD for the Daredevil movie introduced me to David Mack, who would become my favorite comic artist. Also, I rather liked the Daredevil movie (enough to buy up anything with Mack's name on it, from Parts of a Hole through Echo: Vision Quest). I can't say the same for Elektra, and it seemed neither could aspiring director Chris Notarile; In searching for information on Frank Miller's Xerxes, a purported prequel to 300, I came across this short film, presented in full on IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/wab/vi2180842521/

Chris Notarile, on his own time, with his own money, created (almost singlehandedly) this 11-minute short film dramatizing the death, past, and resurrection of Frank Miller's red-clad assassin.

Rather than do a full, scene-by-scene breakdown (which short films tend to lend themselves to) I want to go into detail on what is quite possibly the weakest scene in the film, which is saying quite a bit given that the film is only 11 minutes in length. After Elektra is killed by Bullseye, there is a flashback to Matt Murdock's days at Columbia University, where he meets the lovely Elektra Natchios and becomes entranced by her. After trying to get her attention by dropping some of his books near her as he walks past, Matt realizes that he's not going to have a chance unless he does something about Elektra's omnipresent bodyguard. He takes out a multi-colored hackey-sack (which, it should be pointed out, is not made of rubbery materials and is therefore not bouncy in any way) which he then ricochets off two railings before knocking the bodyguard unconscious. What follows the shot of him putting this plan into motion by hurtling the ball off-screen are three long and drawn-out shots that no small budget and no brief filming schedule can excuse. The first shot is the first ricochet, the hackey-sack bouncing off a railing. Of course, not being a rubber ball at all, it doesn't so much "bounce" off the railing as much as it hits it and then falls to the ground. The exact same thing happens in the next shot, which is meant to be the ball bouncing off another railing, but since the ball didn't bounce off the first railing (instead, falling to the ground) the subconscious mental connection that's supposed to form ultimately fails to do so and causes a jarring break in the immersion. At first, I thought he just threw a second ball, as if working on his aim before launching a third ball at the security guard. is that however poorly constructed and edited the previous two shots were, they don't hold a candle to the debacle that is the shot of the supposedly-ricocheting hackey-sack "soaring" in front of Matt's face, depicted by the camera slowly panning left to right, with the hackey-sack resting at the bottom of the frame. The last shot is the sack hitting the security guard on the back of the head, thankfully bringing the sequence to its much-delayed conclusion.

It may not seem fair to say an entire film, however short, is brought down by a singularly weak scene, and that's not the case. This is overall a very bad short film, with the rent-a-cop knockdown just one of several examples of poor editing, mismanaged production values, and a total lacking of clarity of vision by its director.

If I had to say something nice about the movie, I could only point to a single frame, a shot of Daredevil crouched upon a ledge surveying the streets below. It's a brilliant image, but it's not cinematic in any way. It's certainly a far cry from the shot of Batman leering down on an alleyway in Sandy Collora's much-acclaimed fan film Batman: Dead End. Granted, that director's demo reel had a bigger budget, and Mr. Collora had far more experience in filmmaking than Mr. Notarile, but both directors take a more down-to-earth approach and give iconic heroes costumes that don't look like they came out of Stan Winston's studio yet rise above the look of cheap Halloween costumes.

The costumes look rushed and try way too hard to resemble their print-media predecessors. To top it off, Bullseye's costume is this ludicrous compromise between his original blue bodysuit and the trenchcoat-over-tanktop ensemble from the movie. It just begs the question: why pattern 2 of the 3 total costumes after the comics, but pull back on the third? The only upshot to these costumes is that they probably make it much easier for the actors to move around in during the fight scenes.

The fight choreography was horrendous and the camera seemed to wrestle with the dilemma of either zooming in tighter and risk looking like it's trying to disguise the actors' relative inexperience or keeping the shot wide and expose all the pauses and breaks that out the fight as staged. Instead, the camera stays at this odd middle distance that cuts off heads and legs and tries to center square on people's backs.

This is where I field defenses of not what film is so much as what it is trying to be:

"It's not trying to be Citizen Kane."
"They're just students."
"They had no money and barely enough time."
"No one told them to do this."
"It's a labor of love."

True, but despite these shortcomings this film can't even rise to the level of mediocrity.

Yeah, I should probably read fully the interview where Chris Notarile details the 40USD budget (spent on "materials, metrocards, and hot chocolate") so I can potentially get a better appreciation for what this film is and what it's trying to do, but this ignores something fundamental about filmmaking and perhaps about art in general: The end result must stand on its own.

I may not be an executive for a major studio, and my own skills as a director may be questionable at best, but I don't think I have to be in order to make a sound prediction for Mr. Notarile. Much like his Maniac Cop short (which I haven't seen, but don't feel all that enthusiastic about remedying), he's exhibiting his skills to try and land himself a major directing gig. If I were looking through demo reels, trying to handpick a director to helm my latest project, this wouldn't even make it into a "maybe" pile.

I'm not going to say "I could make a better film" because it's a bit of a faux pas for directors (aspiring or otherwise) to bash each other's work. That said, I do feel like I should re-enact the hackey-sack scene and present the video as a sort of critique-in-motion. Maybe that's mean, but I just can't overlook the shortcomings of this piece, low budget or not. The bar on fan films was raised years ago, long before Batman: Dead End, and Elektra: The Hand & The Devil misses it by a mile.

An Updated Video

I'm not sure if this shows up in embedded videos, but I've recently added annotations to my 2004: Digital Backlot Cycle video. Because of the ten-minute time limit, I had to make a few cuts to preserve what I had, including full and proper credits, which I'm normally really good about making for all of my videos. Like I've said before, YouTube might be growing on me, and while I neither confirm nor deny this, I maintain that the annotations and notes are the best feature of video hosting on YouTube.

Oh, and an update on Revver. Revver has finally made my videos live after sitting on them for over 3 weeks. However, they might as well be inaccessible like they were before. Every time I try to access each video's respective page to get the "embed" code to post them in my various weblogs, I get their painfully annoying "500 error, or something broke" message. Maybe it's because of my connection, but that website is so clunky, buggy, and unruly that I can't access my videos to make changes like preview thumbnails (if I manage to select one, I get that stupid "500 error" message when I click "save"). I can't even enable comments because it won't let me check the box to say so. I'm starting to see why Channel Awesome (producers of That Guy With The Glasses) moved their content from Revver to Blip.tv. I mean, I really can't believe this site was ever popular. Maybe it's just current events and goings-on that have led to the site's current state, but really they can't even rise to the level of YouTube or Vimeo despite their claims to be superior services. The only reason I even gave them a chance was because a tutorial video about the Creative Commons mentioned them and I found out they have a Shared Revenue program for the advertisements they attach to videos. By contrast, Youtube has a Shared Revenue program, but it's only following an application process, whereby your channel is arbitrarily judged as worthy or otherwise, depending on how many views you receive as well as a number of non-specific criteria. Anyway, I think I'll just hold out for that instead of trying to get Revver to work for me. There's always Blip.tv, but I had such a problem figuring out that site's tools it just didn't seem worth it. I'm all for Open Source, but would it have killed them to streamline their interface? Maybe I'm just too dumb for it, but I really can't believe anyone uses that service with any proficiency.

Rampart in 3 Parts Has Gone Live

If there's a single positive thing I would ever have to say about YouTube, it's that I actually really like the annotation and interactivity features. Some people use them to append factual updates to their v-logs, which is very useful given the time it can take to edit and upload a video, not to mention what can transpire after it goes live. One of my favorite YouTube videos is an interactive game that uses stop-motion animation of Street Fighter action figures. It's simplistic, but it's beautiful for it. I'm using the middle-of-the-road feature of annotations where I simply put links to the subsequent and previous entries in the series at the beginnings and endings of the videos. That said, I'd really love to do more stuff that takes advantage of the interactivity features. What gets me is, despite the influence of YouTube, no other video-sharing site has anything close to this. DeviantART has a feature for their videos where you can pause the video and leave a comment at that particular point in the timeline, but that's the closest thing I can find. I would have thought blip.tv would try to trump YouTube, but they don't seem interested.

I really don't know what to think. It's like I said in one of my Twitter posts: Could YouTube be growing on me? O_o

Honest Theft

You know what really gets under my skin?
The notion that to admit to a wrongdoing is to be absolved from its consequences.

Here's what I'm on about:
My roommate tells me she found this really cool piece of World of Warcraft machinima on Youtube. I watched it, and admittedly, it was pretty damn good, very nicely crafted with the sole blemish being its horrendous soundtrack (I honestly paused the video just to make sure it was really the video's sound and not just Windows Media Player running in the background). Normally, the only machinima I've really liked is Red Vs. Blue, otherwise I consider machinima a pretty low art form, especially when it just uses existing game graphics instead of modified or otherwise re-skinned ones. That's not what bothers me: what bothers me is the person who posted it. Not only were they not the video's original creator, but they actually provided links to the original author's YouTube channel (which is here).

Think about that:
Someone created and uploaded a video to their channel.
Someone else downloaded or captured the video and repost it to their own channel.
They then post a link in the info box to the original video in the original author's channel.

Now I know what some of you might be thinking: "But they're giving credit, at least. They're not claiming it as their own." Okay, granted, they're admitting to what they're doing, but consider this:
1) Why re-upload it when it's still available and live on its original creator's channel?
2) They may not be profiting, or getting any real undue attention, from the video, but those view-counters are going up and up. Each and every one of those views really belongs on the original author's page.

If you want to spread word about the video, there are dozens of better ways to do it besides downloading it and re-uploading it in your channel. Grant a favorite to the video; it'll appear in your channel. Put the video in a playlist. Write a journal entry about it. E-Mail the link to your friends.

That's what irks me. People take something that's not theirs, copy it, present it, then shout from the rooftops that it's not theirs, as if they're doing the original creator a favor.

"I don't own this." Then why do you have it?
"I didn't make this." Then let the person who did decide where it goes.
"I own nothing." Could have fooled me.
"Give him creds." While you take his page views?

Page views may not have a real monetary value, but they are meant to be EARNED, nonetheless.

NAZCA (Copyleft Version)

I'll be making a sort of "behind the scenes" video explaining the dilemma presented by the Creative Commons license attached to the Nine Inch Nails song from their recent Ghosts album that was used in the first version of this video. It'll also be a sort of general overview as to the nature of the Creative Commons and how it relates to copyleft and traditional copyright.

Spiritually, I do prefer the NIN version, but this edition is more in line with the original goal of the project.

GODAMMIT

I don't expect things to be easy for me. I really don't. I know Murphy's Law is always looming overhead and I actually both appreciate and welcome the humility that comes with his tidings. When it comes to making videos, however, each and every one I make is a whole new challenge essentially no matter what process I take or how many times I repeat it. In short, I can't repeat myself, so I can't apply what I learn. 

What's brought all this on is Yahoo! Video, the last people I expected this issue from. The past two videos I've made have been successfully uploaded to DeviantArt, no problems whatsoever. In fact, the only headache DA gives is registering to be able to upload videos in the first place; you can't just sign up for an account and start uploading. You have to upload a video to another site, then contact an administrator with a link to the video, and if they like what they see, your account is 'unlocked' and you'll be able to upload videos just like any other deviation. Video sharing sites like Y!Video and YouTube don't bother with such a formality and are more like the former description wherein all you need is an account. Y!Video, however and of late... 

So the newer videos I'm making are more like V-Logs, so they're not really fit for DA. However, as posted in other weblogs (namely DA, but also Multiply, the new home of my Y!360 account), I have ultimately no desire to post anything of mine to YouTube. I won't go into exactly what makes up my hatred for the site beyond that for every five minutes for which I'm genuinely entertained or even moved by something there, there's an attached block of three hours for which time I'm bored out of my brains. To put it another way, remember when mp3.com and napster.com were new? Everyone seemed to think (and state in their ironic defense of those sites) that it will allow people to hear from small and unsigned bands or discover out of print records that may lead to being discovered or reissued by major labels, and yet the most frequently shared file was Metallica's black album, notably in print and far from obscure. 

Back to the issue at hand: The problem is that Y!Video is basically not allowing me to upload any more videos. Sure, it acts like it's going to, albeit it first tries to throw me off by making the "browse" and "upload now" sections of the upload page look as if I can't select them. The only way I honestly knew that it was allowing me to browse a video was that it would open a window displaying my available files which I could then select. Once I select the video and hit "upload now" the screen grays out and we then see a progress bar where it presents the upload progress as a percentage. Five hours and it did not move past zero. Even on Dial-Up, zero percent at five hours for 100MB is a joke. This didn't used to be a problem, but now it is. For the sake of science, this process was repeated using Firefox instead of Opera with the same result. Then, we tried again using Opera, Firefox, and Internet Explorer on my roommate's windows machine. Same apparent lack of progress on Firefox and Opera, but Internet Explorer managed after six hours to get to 37% before an error window popped up saying "our robots advise that you try uploading later" (I don't remember exactly what it said, I was too angry). At first, I thought, maybe it's because I'm using Linux instead of Windows or Mac, but that can't be the case because DA and flickr's video section didn't have a problem (I used another file for flickr, because the video I want to upload is about ten minutes in length). Besides, all their warnings about non compatibility with Linux have more to do with playback than uploading, and I've been able to peruse Y!Video without any problems. I don't think it can possibly be the connection, either, because like I said, DA and flickr work just fine. Posting a question on Y!Answers has yet to yield a result (to be fair, it was posted only about an hour ago) and trying to get help through Yahoo! support yields no result as they'd rather try to guide me through troubleshooting steps having nothing to do with my problem than give me a way to contact someone and get a more direct answer. 

So that's it, I've had it with Y!Video. All I wanted to do was upload a video and yet that is apparently impossible for no obvious reason beyond that of the purely arbitrary. 

APPENDIX: On the subject of help from Yahoo!, what is the point of listing Help and Contact Us separately if they just take you to the same damned page?